


(After Lil' Nugget) One pill makes you larger and One pill makes you small

by LizardWhisperer



Series: Lil' Nugget Series [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Addiction and recovery, Forgiveness(self and otherwise), Mentions only of Sam and Dean, We do recover, memories of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 15:08:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8805601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizardWhisperer/pseuds/LizardWhisperer
Summary: Sam and Dean aren't in this stamp--it's a Cas-centric piece.  Big Cas.SPN seems to revel in burying it's beloved characters in guilt, shame, and remorse.  Consider this a small measure of relief from the tractor-trailer-ful of self-loathing these poor guys slog through in life.This chapter won't make any sense if you haven't read (Mis)Adventures in Nugget Sitting.This piece was deeply personal to me.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sam and Dean aren't in this stamp--it's a Cas-centric piece. Big Cas.  
> SPN seems to revel in burying it's beloved characters in guilt, shame, and remorse. Consider this a small measure of relief from the tractor-trailer-ful of self-loathing these poor guys slog through in life.
> 
> This chapter won't make any sense if you haven't read (Mis)Adventures in Nugget Sitting.
> 
> This piece was deeply personal to me.

Cas didn’t mind being sent to interview those who had last seen the monster the Winchesters were hunting, even though it was obvious it had moved on.  By nature, Shape-shifters tended to change location often, becoming new people and leaving suspicious baffled ones in their wake.  Of course, there was also the gelatinous pile of skin—a red flag to hunters.  Sam and Dean had headed some ninety miles west of the report of the skin, having ID’d this particular Shifter and headed to his hometown to gather more personal information.  Gathering personal information wasn’t Cas’ particular forte, though his agent act sufficed—as long as the angel stuck to the Joe Friday line of questioning and avoided inquiries into human behavior.  Just the facts, Ma’am.

Cas’ interviews with the store employees focused mainly on other places the Shifter may have gone, attempting to track the monster’s next location.  Interviewing the girlfriend of the man who had been killed so the Shifter could claim his identity proved most difficult for Castiel.  Still struggling to accept that her boyfriend was dead, she broke down often during questioning and Cas had to fight the urge to hug the young woman, instead opting to uphold his cover as an FBI agent, offering some tissues and parting with his condolences. 

He was just leaving the scene of the skinsuit, when his eye trailed after a figure entering the market.   In fact, his eyes locked so tightly onto the woman, walking briskly, in a muted grey pantsuit, carrying a tan valise--Cas was forced to rubberneck, as she passed.  Even a powerful angel cannot manage to owl his vessel’s neck, so Cas turned completely on his heel to watch the figure in grey head towards the service desk.

Cas’ time on Earth had dealt him a number of surprises—being taken care of as a toddler by Sam and Dean certainly had been a big one, as well as his fall from Heaven—and of course, that whole Apocalypse thing.  But on this day, the angel surprised himself, standing there in that grocery store, when he called out to the lady with the valise, “Alice!”

 

Alice turned and looked in his direction, then all around him, searching for who had shouted her name.  She didn’t recognize anyone, so she smoothed her hair back and turned towards the desk—there must be another Alice and besides, today her name was Joyce.  “Alice!  Please, I’d like to speak to you.”

She turned again, only to startle and step back from the man in the trench coat, who was definitely in her personal space.  Cas noticed and took half a step back, as well.  “Your name is Alice, right?  Alice Carroll?”

There goes your cover, Alice.  Damn.  She smoothed her hair again, a nervous tic, and pasting on a reluctant smile, offered her hand, “Well, yes—and you are…?”

Cas grasped the woman’s hand, fumbling in his coat for his fake ID.  “Agent Beyonce?”  Alice read, hardly able to suppress a chuckle—until her weak efforts failed and she laughed out loud, pulling Cas closer by his hand and lowering her voice, “Haven’t been hunting long, have you?”

Cas stared at her a moment, taken aback, then he withdrew his hand and puffed out his chest, “Longer than you’ve been alive.”

Another swipe over her dark hair and Alice dismissed Cas’ comment with a huff, “I’m older than I look, buster,” she regarded the angel suspiciously, “and how do you know me, handsome?  Wait—don’t tell me—you hunted with Ted.”

“No, actually, you and I had an…experience together.  It was some time ago and you seem very different now.”

Alice’s face went blank a moment, then she looked stricken as she buried her face in her hands, “Oh, God, did we sleep together?” She chanced a peek, “ Listen, like you said I’m different now.  _Please_ don’t take this wrong, but there’s a lot I don’t remember.”

Castiel tilted his head in his best Castiel way, narrowing his eyes in confusion.  Alice looked around the store, taking in the shoppers and suddenly remembered what she was there for.  She opened her mouth but Cas cut her off, “No, we didn’t do any sleeping _together_.  But I left in a hurry and we never had a chance to, er—“

Alice flushed and waved Cas’ next words away, “Look, it’s nice you remember me, but I gotta be honest—you’re not ringing any bells and I’m working here.”

Cas produced his notebook, filled with the day’s accurately transcribed interviews, “We’re hunting the same thing, Alice—a Shape-shifter, correct?”

She nodded.

“So, why don’t we go someplace more quiet and I’ll share what I know.  The shifter’s victim had a girlfriend who gave me some leads, but I don’t think she’s up to any more questioning today.”

Alice looked from Cas’ blue eyes to the notebook and back.  “More quiet, eh?  Not a bar, but I’ll let you buy me a coffee—Agent _Beyonce._ ”

As they walked the sidewalk, towards a nearby coffee shop, Cas stole glances at the woman beside him.  Her hair was neatly drawn back, her clothing spotless, nails painted and even—and her posture spoke of confidence—and sobriety.  As he glanced her way once again, Alice chimed, “Got a camera phone?  We could take a selfie.”

Cas cleared his throat, turning his attention to opening the café door for his companion.  “My apologies, Alice, it’s just that—the woman I knew was practically unrecognizable from the one who’s with me today.”

“You’re damn straight—and so am I.”

Taking their seats in a booth by the window, they ordered coffee and Cas handed over his notes, which Alice typed into a laptop.  Cas watched her, his hands cradling the hot coffee cup.  Sensations like heat and cold were no longer significant to his vessel, once again empowered with grace, but Cas had learned to dull his grace’s strength—and experience some of the sensations he had grown fond of, as a human child.  While he still had no need for it, eating—and _tasting_ food had become one of his favorite pastimes.  Sitting down to dinner with the Winchesters proved a worthwhile use of his newfound grace-suppression skills.  Some nights, nestled against Dean’s chest—the hunter’s steady and sure heartbeat in his ear—the angel nearly slept.  Nearly.

“I don’t wish to rain on your parade, Alice, but that same information was already texted to my, er—partners, just before you arrived.  Sam and Dean are most likely already headed to Tulsa right now—the Shifter will be— “

“Sam and Dean?  Winchester?”  Alice slammed the lid of her laptop closed and started to gather her things.  Cas reached out and stayed her busy hand, “Alice, wait, please.  The Winchesters wish you no harm.”  Alice stared back at Castiel, intensely.  “That’s good news, blue eyes—but I did _them_ harm and if it wasn’t _for_ them, I wouldn’t be who I am today.  I have something I need to tell them—all of them.  If they’re going to Tulsa, so am I.”

She held her stare with the handsome stranger who had just gave her so much more than information on her case.  The angel stared back, her words sinking in, the meaning behind them.  He remembered the night this woman had beaten his tiny vessel mercilessly, in a drunken rage.  The evening hadn’t started that way.  As soon as Sam and Dean had kissed him goodbye and the Impala had rumbled off, Alice had sat down with the pungent bottle and started asking questions about his caretakers.  At first, she wanted to know if the men were gay, if Cas was adopted.  Then, she grilled the little angel on their hunting life and eventually, as the bottle emptied, Alice demanded to know how the brothers had stayed alive so long.  “They don’t deserve it, ya know!  Why them?  There are other hunters…” She had jabbed the bottle into Cas’ chest, “ _good_ hunters, hunters with fam—“

Cas rubbed his chest with his little hands and bravely interrupted the rambling woman.  “I know why you drink, Alice.  He _was_ a good man, you’re right.  But it wasn’t your fault and—and _you are_ a good woman, Alice.  Ted lov—“

"Shut up! Shut up, brat!"

"No."

That’s when the spanking had begun.  And the berating.  The spanking had hurt— _a lot_ —but what Cas had hardly been able to bear was hearing Alice say over and over that he was “bad;” a self-affirmation he’d entertained ever since his fall from Heaven, his opening of Purgatory—his release of the Leviathan.  He’d proven again and again that he was a bad angel, a bad warrior—a bad friend.  Sam and Dean denied their angel was ever such a thing.  His friends, of course, knew the unforgivable things Cas had done—yet the hunters _had_ forgiven them.  Forgiven him.

“My name isn’t Beyonce, Alice.”

“No kidding, sweetheart,” she said, stuffing her valise.

“It’s Castiel.  They call me Cas.”

Alice closed the buckle over the leather bag, shaking her head, “Well, Ca—“ she looked up at him sharply, “Cas?  Castiel?”  Her hands relaxed as she let her bag rest back on the table.  “L-little Castiel?”

Cas nodded slowly, holding her shocked gaze.

“I got big—again.”

Alice let out a puff of air that could inflate a raft, sinking back in her chair and shaking her head.  “You sure did, honey.”

“It was a spell—a long story.”

They sat in silence a minute; as Alice wrapped her head around things.

Then she said, “You remember more than I do, I’m sure.  I was high on pills before you got there that night, but when I switched to the scotch, well… “

“You were in pain, Alice.  Believing Ted’s death was your fault was unbearable for you.  The alcohol dulled the—“

“The everything. It dulled the everything, Castiel.  Even my reasoning—but that’s not an excuse for what I did to you.  You were so little and I hurt you badly.  It all made sense then, but now it’s like it was someone else who did that.  Someone else that thought that was ok,” she reached across the table and grasped his hands, “It wasn’t. It isn’t.  I’m sorry, honey, so sorry.  I was wrong.  The drugs and alcohol clouded my judgment, but _I_ still made my choices. Bad choices.”

“But Alice, you said it yourself—you’re not that person any longer.  _You’re_ not bad, your choices were.  I forgive you.”

“Thanks, Cas," Alice’s eyes glistened with tears, her nose flushing, “I still need to talk to Sam and Dean.”

“Hopefully, making amends to them will close this chapter for you.”

“I do want to apologize, but mostly I need to _thank_ _them_ —framing me with that OUI changed everything for me.  I was court-ordered to a rehab, joined a program, and I’ve been clean ever since.  I was never going to detox on my own—no way!  As far as I believed, I had it all under control,” again, Alice shook her head, smoothing her hair, “Imagine that, I was just fine living that way.  But thanks to the Hardy Boys, I was Alice Interrupted.”

Cas stood, offering his hand, “Well, Alice, if you’re headed towards Tulsa, so am I.  There’s this shifter out there that gave me the slip.  Care to join me?”

“Castiel, I couldn’t make a better choice.”


End file.
